Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T05:57:05.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The date of the Greater Stonehenge Cursus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Julian Thomas ,
Peter Marshall ,
Mike Parker Pearson ,
Joshua Pollard ,
Colin Richards ,
Chris Tilley  and
Kate Welham
Julian Thomas
Affiliation:
School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (Email: julian.thomas@manchester.ac.uk)
Peter Marshall
Affiliation:
ARCUS, Sheaf Bank Business Park, Sheffield, UK
Mike Parker Pearson
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Joshua Pollard
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Colin Richards
Affiliation:
School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (Email: julian.thomas@manchester.ac.uk)
Chris Tilley
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
Kate Welham
Affiliation:
School of Conservation Sciences, University of Bournemouth, Bournemouth, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Greater Cursus – 3km long and just north of Stonehenge – had been dated by a red deer antler found in its ditch in the 1940s to 2890-2460 BC. New excavations by the authors found another antler in a much tighter context, and dating a millennium earlier. It appears that the colossal cursus had already marked out the landscape before Stonehenge was erected. At that time or soon after, its lines were re-emphasised, perhaps with a row of posts in pits. So grows the subtlety of the discourse of monuments in this world heritage site.

Keywords

EnglandStonehengeNeolithiccursusexcavationradiocarbon dating
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 319 , March 2009 , pp. 40 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barclay, A. & Bayliss, A. L.. 1999. Cursus monuments and the radiocarbon problem, in Barclay, A. & Harding, J. (ed.) Pathways and ceremonies: the cursus monuments of Britain and Ireland: 11–29. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. C., Bradley, R. J. & Green, M.. 1991. Landscape, monuments and society: the prehistory of Cranborne Chase. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayliss, A. L., Bronk Ramsay, C. & Mccormac, F. G.. 1997. Dating Stonehenge, in Cunliffe, B. & Renfrew, C. (ed.) Science and Stonehenge: 39–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. J. & Chambers, R.. 1988. A new study of the cursus complex at Dorchester on Thames. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 7: 271–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brophy, K. 2000. Water coincidence? Cursus monuments and rivers, in Ritchie, A. (ed.) Neolithic Orkney in its European context: 59–70. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Burl, H.W.A., 2006. Stonehenge: a new history of the world's greatest stone circle. London: Constable.Google Scholar
Christie, P. 1963. The Stonehenge Cursus. Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 58: 370–82.Google Scholar
Darvill, T. C. 2007. Stonehenge: the biography of a landscape. Stroud: Tempus.Google Scholar
Farrer, R. 1917. Excavations in ‘The Cursus’, July 1917. Unpublished manuscript, Devizes Museum.Google Scholar
Greenwell, W. 1877. British barrows: a record of the examination of sepulchral mounds in various parts of England. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Grinsell, L. V. 1978. The Stonehenge barrow groups. Salisbury: Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum.Google Scholar
Hoare, R. C. 1810. The ancient history of Wiltshire. London: William Miller.Google Scholar
Ixer, R. & Turner, P.. 2006. A detailed re-examination of the petrography of the Altar Stone and other non-sarsen sandstones from Stonehenge as a guide to their provenance. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 99: 1–9.Google Scholar
Johnston, R. 1999. An empty path? Processions, memories and the Dorset Cursus, in Barclay, A. & Harding, J. (ed.) Pathways and ceremonies: the cursus monuments of Neolithic Britain and Ireland: 39–48. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M., Richards, C., Allen, M., Payne, A. & Welham, K.. 2004. The Stonehenge Riverside Project: research design and initial results. Journal of Nordic Archaeological Science 14: 45–60.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M., Cleal, R., Marshall, P., Needham, S., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Ruggles, C., Sheridan, A., Thomas, J., Tilley, C., Welham, K., Chamberlain, A., Chenery, C., Evans, J., Kn, C. üsel, Linford, N., Martin, L., Montgomery, J., Payne, A. & RICHARDS, M.. 2007. The age of Stonehenge. Antiquity 81: 617–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, J. 1990. The Stonehenge Environs Project (Historical Buildings & Monuments Commission for England Archaeological Report 16). London: Historical Buildings & Monuments Commission for England.Google Scholar
Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. 1979. Stonehenge and its environs: monuments and land use. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. 1984. Social evolution: Europe in the Later Neolithic and Copper Ages, in Bintliff, J. L. (ed.) European social evolution: archaeological perspectives: 123–34. Bradford: University of Bradford.Google Scholar
Stone, J.F.S. 1947. The Stonehenge Cursus and its affinities. Archaeological Journal 104: 7–19.Google Scholar
Stukeley, W. 1740. Stonehenge, a temple restor'd to the British druids. London: Printed for W. Innys & R. Manby.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. S. 1999. Understanding the Neolithic. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. S. 2006. On the origins and development of cursus monuments in Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 72: 229–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, J. S. (ed.) 2007. Place and memory: excavations at the Pict's Knowe, Holywood and Holm Farm, Dumfries and Galloway, 1994-8. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Thurnam, J. 1869. On ancient British barrows, especially those of Wiltshire and the adjoining counties (part I - long barrows). Archaeologia 42: 161–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, G. K. & Wilson, R. S.. 1978. Procedures for comparing and combining radiocarbon age determinations: a critique. Archaeometry 20: 19–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A., Atkinson, R.J.C., Chambers, R. & Thomas, N.. 1992. Excavations in the Neolithic and Bronze Age complex at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, 1947-1952 and 1981. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58: 143–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A., Rouse, A. J. & Evans, J. G.. 1993. A Neolithic downland monument in its environment: excavations at the Easton Down long barrow, Bishop's Cannings, north Wiltshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 59: 197–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A., Barclay, A., Bayliss, A., Mcfayden, L., Schulting, R. & Wysocki, M.. 2007. Building for the dead: events, processes and changing worldviews from the thirty-eighth to the thirty-fourth centuries cal BC in southern Britain. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17 (supplement): 123–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar